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samibee17's review against another edition
hopeful
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
readmoreyall's review against another edition
4.0
I’m not sure why, but it took me a while to get into this book. Maybe it’s because I read too fast and I missed details, or maybe it just took me a long time to fall in love with Lulu...but by the end? I love this book. I love these girls. My students will love this too.
You deserve to treat yourself with this read. Buy. Enjoy.
You deserve to treat yourself with this read. Buy. Enjoy.
kaylareadsbooks's review against another edition
5.0
I want to thank the publisher for providing me with a physical ARC in exchange for this honest review and a place on this blog tour. And thank you to Aimee from Aimee, Always for hosting this blog tour. I am so thankful that I got the opportunity to be part of this.
Lulu and her friends are fierce. They are strong, independent and care for each other more than anything. Lulu is messy, she is your normal teenage girl just trying to get through high school. She is a wild child, making things more difficult for herself and her parents.
If there is one thing I get from this book, is that this is my new favorite friendship novel. This group of friends is fierce, I wish I had them by my side when I was in high school.
Lulu has two very different parts of her life, her family life and her life with her friends. Her father is Muslim and her mother is not, her dad’s family is originally from Baghdad. Lulu fasts for Ramadan and states that this is something she does that bonds her to her family over seas, the ones she can’t communicate with properly due to their language barrier.
Lulu’s relationships with her friends and with the boys she meets are nothing but complex, which makes reading this book so much more fun. Lulu is feisty, outspoken, strong, shy and just plain normal. She is relatable, she is smart and she is trying to navigate her life like everyone around her. She gets herself into sticky situations, laughs a lot, rolls her eyes a little too much and is unapologetically herself.
Lulu and her friends are fierce. They are strong, independent and care for each other more than anything. Lulu is messy, she is your normal teenage girl just trying to get through high school. She is a wild child, making things more difficult for herself and her parents.
If there is one thing I get from this book, is that this is my new favorite friendship novel. This group of friends is fierce, I wish I had them by my side when I was in high school.
Lulu has two very different parts of her life, her family life and her life with her friends. Her father is Muslim and her mother is not, her dad’s family is originally from Baghdad. Lulu fasts for Ramadan and states that this is something she does that bonds her to her family over seas, the ones she can’t communicate with properly due to their language barrier.
Lulu’s relationships with her friends and with the boys she meets are nothing but complex, which makes reading this book so much more fun. Lulu is feisty, outspoken, strong, shy and just plain normal. She is relatable, she is smart and she is trying to navigate her life like everyone around her. She gets herself into sticky situations, laughs a lot, rolls her eyes a little too much and is unapologetically herself.
_karinaiello_'s review against another edition
2.0
I really hate rating this book so low, but according to the star rating scale I devised in my own brain I have to. This was a book. It was fine.
The longer version of this review is that the story concept wasn't bad. The delivery was just. Not. Good. There were too many times I had no idea what she was saying, and not because of the untranslated Arabic sprinkled throughout. No, it was like the author knew the story, in her head she had all the backstory and character development details, then every once in a while she would write something out, thinking we all knew those things. But they were still in her head. I think she had a LOT of story to tell and I wanted to hear it all, but she just didn't deliver. I really think she had the potential for 3 or 4 books here and did herself and the rest of us a disservice by trying to do it all in one book.
The longer version of this review is that the story concept wasn't bad. The delivery was just. Not. Good. There were too many times I had no idea what she was saying, and not because of the untranslated Arabic sprinkled throughout. No, it was like the author knew the story, in her head she had all the backstory and character development details, then every once in a while she would write something out, thinking we all knew those things. But they were still in her head. I think she had a LOT of story to tell and I wanted to hear it all, but she just didn't deliver. I really think she had the potential for 3 or 4 books here and did herself and the rest of us a disservice by trying to do it all in one book.
literatehedgehog's review against another edition
4.0
A sharp contemporary YA with realistic female friendships.
While my high school friendships may have differed from the dynamics in this book, I could totally see these girls as real friends with complicated interactions. They were different in temperaments, backgrounds, race, and sexuality, but each was recognized and valued for those, and played equal parts in the group (at least by the end, I suppose). Best of all, the plot of the book centers on the changes in their relationships, not romantic relationships. Sure, there is plenty of drama with romance and sex, but the driving force of the story is the friendship.
*minor spoiler ahead.
I didn't always understand the moods and reactions of the girls, but it has been...a few decades since I was a teenager so that difficulty is on me, not on the writing. If I had any one particular annoyance, it was that the setting of so many scenes took place at parties. My mental image populated the background of the teen parties with so many slices of 1990s teen comedies that lessened the power of whatever drama was unspooling. Plus, it made it seem like Lulu's life centered on partying, if you consider percentage of story spent at parties (family, religious, and friends combined), but I don't think that was the intention.
Excellent narration, especially distinguishing each girl's voice, and the fluent Arabic and occasional French used.
While my high school friendships may have differed from the dynamics in this book, I could totally see these girls as real friends with complicated interactions. They were different in temperaments, backgrounds, race, and sexuality, but each was recognized and valued for those, and played equal parts in the group (at least by the end, I suppose). Best of all, the plot of the book centers on the changes in their relationships, not romantic relationships. Sure, there is plenty of drama with romance and sex, but the driving force of the story is the friendship.
*minor spoiler ahead
Spoiler
It was also refreshing that Lulu's main antagonist bothered her currently by sexual harassment, but he had become her antagonist through racist behaviors. There was tension in her hiding why he was such an enemy to her, and it would have been believable, but less forceful, for it to be solely on his unwanted sexual attention. [Which, not to minimize, is barbaric and disgusting as it is].I didn't always understand the moods and reactions of the girls, but it has been...a few decades since I was a teenager so that difficulty is on me, not on the writing. If I had any one particular annoyance, it was that the setting of so many scenes took place at parties. My mental image populated the background of the teen parties with so many slices of 1990s teen comedies that lessened the power of whatever drama was unspooling. Plus, it made it seem like Lulu's life centered on partying, if you consider percentage of story spent at parties (family, religious, and friends combined), but I don't think that was the intention.
Excellent narration, especially distinguishing each girl's voice, and the fluent Arabic and occasional French used.
misterintensity's review against another edition
4.0
Lulu Saad, who is part Iraqi and part American, often makes rash decisions but with her three best friends backing her up she has nothing to worry about. However, during one particularly rough Ramadan she makes a set of decisions that make her girls turn her back on her. Lulu never felt so alone but no matter what she does she cannot make amends with them. Safi makes Lulu and her friends come to life. From the moment she is introduced Lulu shows her tough she is. She comes off as so tough that she may come off as abrasive to some readers. Yet as the story goes on, especially after she faces calamity after calamity, readers get to see how vulnerable Lulu really is. More than once she remarks how she wants to be seen yet unseen. This makes sense considering that while Lulu likes to party with her American friends, she also observes Ramadan which includes fasting until sundown everyday for the duration. The book's strength is in its depiction of friendship. The relationship between Lulu and her friends isn't perfect and is often very messy, yet the four have a shared bond that keeps them together yet like many teenage bonds could also be very fragile. In a lot of ways the imperfection of the various relationships is refreshing in that they veer between moments of affection and moments of vexation. The frank depiction of teenage drinking and sexuality may not be suitable for younger teens. Overall I do recommend Not the Girls You're Looking For.